Crisis In Teen Sports

There is a crisis in teen physical activity and participation and in traditional sport. New research has found that teens prefer social and unstructured activities such as laser tag.

According to USA Today less than a third of Americans, and only one in five teenagers meet physical fitness guidelines.

The story is the same down under with one in every two Australian girls quitting sport by the age of 15 and the statistics aren't much better when it comes to their male counterparts. 

Forget about creating the next Olympian, what's critically important is that the environment in which they are immersed, is one which engages, nurtures and motivates them to develop a lifelong love of movement, said Behavioral and Health Sciences Associate Professor Gert-Jan Pepping.

The UK's Active Project asked 900 teens what would make them more active, more teens were issued with vouchers to pay for activities. The idea was to empower the youth to select activities that they wanted to do.

British Heart Foundation researchers discovered the biggest barriers to activity were accessibility and lack of opportunities to try new activities ones that were social and informal rather than traditional forms of sport. 

And guess what was the most popular choice from the teens themselves? Laser Tag and Trampolines. 

Promoting mostly traditional sport inside and outside of school could be further pushing teenagers away from physical activity.  The study showed that a top-down approach does not work, and all the evidence showed prescriptive, formal sport is not the answer.

Three Themes to Engage Teens

LIVE Video Games

It's undeniable that modern teens love video games. They are engineered to be highly engaging and fun to play. They are easy to learn but difficult to master, which teens spending hours leveling up their skills.

Our question is: how do we help teens do what they love while staying active?

We have developed an awesome laser tag theme geared directly to the teen market. It's called "Battlefield LIVE". It takes the best concepts from popular video games and makes them real. Gamers use their bodies and minds to achieve success in their "missions".

One of the most popular games is called "Team Death Match". Split your group into two teams: Red vs Blue.

The goal? "kill" the other team more than they "kill" you! The team that makes the most kills wins.

Now you might think that sounds a little dull. THINK AGAIN! This theme allows for the inclusion of Supply Crates. These are physical boxes you place on the field. Gamers must run over to their boxes if they want to collect "supplies". 

Say at the box for long enough (while alive) and the tagger automatically starts collecting these virtual supplies. These awesome upgrades are inspired by popular first person shooters like Call of Duty and Fortnite. Their tagger will speak to them using pre-recorded phrases, letting them know that they've picked up "Boost Juice" or a "Legendary Mini Gun". 

There are dozens of different types of weapons they can collect from the Supply Crate, which changes the sound and capablities of their tagger. 

Each gamers tag their opponents, they also get real-time hit feedback, just like a video game! The thrill of hearing "Hit!" or "Kill!" will get anyone moving. 

Being a teenager can be a difficult time and finding something feels fun and lets teen be social is challenging. But we've landed on the perfect formula!

To bring Live Action Gaming to your teens, contact your local Battlefield Sports consultant.

LIVE Fantasy Role-Playing

In recent years, the fantasy role-playing genre has had a massive boom. Teens and young people are seeking out games that combine imagination with socialising. In the modern day, we spend hours on our screens. It's difficult to escape!

Fantasy Role-Playing games like "Dungeons & Dragons" has a had a real resurgence in recent years.

Ride this wave with a new form of laser tag called e-LARP. Think "Laser Tag with Wands". Instead of a tagger, each player is called a "mage" and they use e-Wand to play. With the Mage Quest theme, players can collect virtual "Loot" from a Loot Chest.

This works just like the Supply Crate, where they can boost their spellcasting abilities or collect useless items that will heal them up.

To cast a spell, they must swing the wand and point to at their opponent's wand or head sensors. Their wand lights up, providing visual and audio feedback as they made a hit! 

Mage Quest features a bunch of engaging games like "Treasure Hunt". Split your group of into two teams: Red vs Blue. The team who ends the quest with the most amount of gold wins. Now who isn't motivated by money? (Very few we've found, even when it's fake!)

In the middle of the field, you place down a box set as a "Treasure Chest". From there the computer inside will add 5gold to its storage every five seconds. The chest will flash gold when it has gold.

Mages rush to the box, cast a spell on it, and collect the money inside!

Now they have their next challenge: get it back to their base safely. If they die, all that gold is GONE.

They get back their base, with its own box, and swing their wand to store the gold for their team. Now they'll need to defend it. Mages on the other team can sneak up to the chest and steal their gold!

Treasure Hunt is a dynamic game that works for a variety of fitness levels and is sure to engage the nerdy teens in your youth group or school sports program.

e-LARP is currently in development. If you think this live adventuring game sounds right for your group, join the wait list!

Gamify Sports Development

Turn training into fun!

Skip the taggers altogether and use wristbands. Packages include several pods which you use to run a game called "Flash" or "Gauntlet".

Flash is all about building agility. Players dart between the pods as they light up, scoring points if they get close enough. Once they've scored a point on one pod, they'll need to get over to a different box if they want to score another!

Gauntlet can be used for obstacle races or time trials. Race between different waypoints as a team. Whichever team that manages to get every player to every pod the fastest, wins!

Turn the boring parts of sports development into fun, lively games.

This product is currently in development. If you think it sounds right for your group, join the wait list!